Batman General Discussion

Well, he doesn't have an actual position as Supreme Asskicker of Gotham, unless you count Adam West days. But, no, he doesn't have any responsibilities beyond being a responsible citizen and businessman of Gotham City.

He doesn't exert too much visible authority within the company either, most of the time. Most of his employers probably think of Lucius Fox as a bigger actual authority figure than him. Bruce seems to be thought of as "the guy who signs checks" for the most part.

Yeah, I'd count Bruce as more influential rather than authoritative.

Actually Batman had a badge for a long time in the comics. It wasn't that long ago when he'd spent more of his history as a semi-official police officer than as a vigilante.

Even in the Bronze Age?

During the Bronze Age, from what I've read, he wasn't exactly deputized (and he sometimes was outright outlawed, like during Englehart's Strange Apparitions run, or that long arc where Ra's had him framed), but most of the time he could be seen hanging around Gordon in broad daylight without anyone batting an eye. Sort of a freelance cooperator openly recognized?

edited 4th Oct '12 9:10:27 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

Well Bruce Wayne is a recognized authority in his company. There is that one Devin Grayson set sometime after Murder/Fugitive that focused entirely on Bruce Wayne and his company and it was shown that he had a very close relationship with his employees.

There is also that one DCAU tie-in comics story where he comes in to work at morning and nearly everyone is surprised he is at work before afternoon which implies that his 'shift' doesn't begin till the afternoon. Given his night time activities that sounds reasonable. Though there are stories where he has to attend meetings at nine but that's probably just occasionally.

As for his deputized police officer state well it depends on stories. I remember one story on scans_daily where he basically gets 'fired' as Gotham's vigilante and replaced by the Metal Men. The story that introduced the Black Spider referred to him as a Deputized Police Officer and it had a sub-plot with a city councilman who didn't approve of it.

One of my favorite moment was in a Brave and the Bold story in the Bronze Age was at the end of this team up with Batman and WW where Bats is just casually walking besides WW who was in her civilian garb explaining how he figured out the plot of the villains involved (it was a delightfully 'twisted' plot btw). It wasn't even at night, it was broad daylight! In front of a UN building!

If it were the present day the roles would have been reversed with Wonder Woman being the one in costume and Batman being in a disguise.

edited 5th Oct '12 6:55:09 AM by TheDrifter

Bruce is not Authority Equals Ass-kicking because no one knows that Bruce is Batman. Most people probably don't even think he can fight. It would be A=AK if Bruce was well known to be a martial artist and that was implied to have some relationship to his business skills.

Besides which, if someone kicks his ass, they don't then become the CEO of Waynecorp.

Alternate end for Knight Fall:

Batman and Robin were at one time deputized members of the Gotham Police Force. Of course, according to some old stories, there's a huge Statue of Liberty-like statue of Batman in Gotham Harbor, too. I'm a little surprised that Grant Morrison didn't find a use for that one somewhere...

Well, a modern age Batman Black and White story did its own story about the city building a monument statue for Batman. It annoyed Batman himself so much, he allowed Hugo Strange to blow it up.

Does anyone have any idea how Batman qualifies for the Evil alignments (as claimed/depicted◊ here? On a more general note, it would be nice if someone could elaborate on the differences between each of these 9 interpretations of Batman in terms of what actions is he willing to take.

edited 22nd Oct '12 5:54:24 PM by MarqFJA

Yeah, would someone care to explain why Batman is kicking a guy who's got chocolate ice cream?

And why that counts as Chaotic Evil, too.

In that comic, Two-Face had contaminated all the ice-cream in that park to turn everyone who ate it into split-personality freaks like himself. Or something like that. No, really.

I've only read a review on it, so I have no idea why he kicked the guy instead of taking the ice-cream down with a Batarang or just shouting "NO, DON'T EAT THAT!" If a huge man in a bat suit shouted me to stop doing something, I know I'd pause on the spot, but then again, Gothamites.

Edit: Lawful Evil is "Crazy Steve" from All Star Batman And Robin, so if anything, I'd question the 'lawful' part, not the 'evil' one.

edited 22nd Oct '12 6:55:30 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

I have that one. It's been a long time since I've read it, but I'm pretty sure that guy was Two-Face gloating over his supposed victory with ice cream. It's just that you only see the "good" half of his face in that picture.

...Because it's a silly joke image?

Apparently it started as a joke, but was revealed to have a surprising degree of truth behind it, judging from digging through the web.

I would say that Batman was at his worst/most evil in All Star Batman And Robin. Really, Chaotic Evil would be a better description for the "Crazy Steve" version of Batman!

Easy way to make Batman evil:

"The 1%" are all evil. Bruce Wayne is a billionaire. QED.

All you need to do is agree with the first premise as axiomatic; the second is canonical.

(I think it's bogus, but it's a popular way to make Batman evil.)

Slightly more sophisticated: assume that his Batman activities prove Bruce Wayne is not doing charitable work, or creating jobs. "He's a 1%er using his wealth to beat up on the mentally ill instead of addressing the root problems." (BTW, Bruce Wayne is canonically shown doing lots of charity work; and Wayne Enterprises is canonically the major employer in chronically economically depressed Gotham—though Lucius Fox may deserve more of the credit for that.)

Hell, you could just show him putting more effort into fighting big flashy super-criminals than he does into stopping real crime.

"Yes, we're all aware that Batman stopped the Joker last week but we exist in a legal system where half of all arrests are petty drug charges. If we legalized it and taxed it, maybe the police force would have time to stop lunatics from poisoning the water supply."

Of course, in the meta context the issue is those regularly escaping supercriminals sell books, so the writers will keep going out their way to not take the sensible and logical ways there.

I'm against meta-textualizing when doing so inhibits my ability to enjoy the story. I would imagine, at any given time, there are always a significant number of published Batman stories that have not officially happened in current continuity (whichever current continuity is in force); therefore, the Joker (or whoever) hasn't been quite the recurring menace to the denizens of Gotham (or wherever) that 70+ years of stories would lead us to believe.

All fantastic fiction requires a certain willful suspension of disbelief. I for one stopped finding the whole post-modern poking-of-holes into the logic that allows super-hero stories to function cool a loooong time ago.

So how many women are shipped with Batman?